Galatians

Study 29: Gal.
4:25-31

Two Jerusalems

For
this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now is,
and is in bondage with her children. But Jerusalem which is above is free,
which is the mother of us all.
For it is written, Rejoice, thou barren that bearest not; break forth
and cry, thou that travailest not: for the desolate hath many more
children than she which hath an husband. Now we, brethren, as
Isaac was, are the children of promise. But as then he that
was
born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit,
even so it is now. Nevertheless what saith the scripture?
Cast
out the bondwoman and her son: for the son of the bondwoman shall not
be heir with the son of the freewoman. So then, brethren, we
are
not children of the bondwoman, but of the free.

Gal.4:25-31

After considering, in the last
study,
two sons and two Covenants we now turn our attention to the final
comparison that Paul makes in this section: namely the two Jerusalems,
the one below on earth and the one above, which we have
revealed
to us as the mother of us all!

1. Jerusalem - Now

Sinai
in Arabia, and answereth [=corresponds
/in the same rank ] to
Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her
children.

Gal.4:25

The word 'answereth ' is a military term, and refers
to soldiers
marching along in the same rank. So Paul is saying that Sinai and the
earthly Jerusalem that was then, are of the same rank, or order. Sinai
was where the Old Covenant was given, that gendered bondage and so does
the Jerusalem that then was in Paul's day. Whereas
the Jerusalem
above in contradistinction is free.

Why did Paul say the earthly Jerusalem that was then in the
same rank
as Sinai? To answer this question we need to
understand what place it had in God's economy. When Israel
conquered Canaan, the Tabernacle was set up at Shiloh Jos. 18:1,
but when that was destroyed the ark had no place and became itinerant,
so to speak, eg. I Sam.5:1;
7:1; II Sam.6:1-11. King David was concerned about this
and eventually brought the ark back I Chr.15.
He wanted to build a Temple for God in Jerusalem, but it
was Solomon that was charged with its construction from the
divine pattern I
Chr.28:11-21. Jerusalem became the
centre of worship for
the nation. It was the place where the males came three times
a
year at the feasts; it was there that the whole of the sacrificial
system took place. Earthly Jerusalem became, and remained for many
centuries, the centre of the
nation's life.

Sinai gave birth to bondage, and so did earthly Jerusalem. It
was because
it was the centre of Judaism that it answered to Sinai. As
we have seen the Old Covenant was only a temporary measure,
and by
the
time Paul wrote Galatians the Old Covenant had been wound up
and
the New Covenant
established, but the physical sacrificial system was still in place,
and
was not removed until the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70.

The Pharisees et. al continued in the Old Covenant, even
though, as far as God was concerned it was finished, (as was
demonstrated by God renting the Temple vail at the
time of
the crucifixion Mtt.27:51.)
They and those who
followed it remained in bondage to the law. They were still in the
slave state - they refused to leave it. Whilst some came into
the
New Covenant, many did not. During the earthly life of the Lord the
religious authorities rejected Christ, and what more did not recognise
the day of their visitation. Lk.19:43.
And it has to be said that legalists, unless convicted, know not the
time
of their visitation, for God's movings do not fit in with their rules.
Jesus said that the time would
come when Jerusalem, or any other mountain come to that, would no
longer be the centre of
the worship of God Jn.4:20-21:
the 'carnal' ( outward forms) would be abolished and the spiritual
established.

By continuing with the OC sacrificial system the Jews were associating
themselves with an abomination! For having sacrificed His dear Son at
Calvary all had been fulfilled and completed. Christ's death was the
substance that the sacrifices foreshadowed, Heb.10:1-10.
Therefore to offer sacrifice for sin after that is blasphemy and an
abomination to God. For by offering the such like is essentially to
deny, in practice, what Christ has done. No wonder in the
great
Messianic prophecy of Daniel we have the sacrificial system called 'the abomination of
desolation, and no wonder God had to
have the whole city of Jerusalem destroyed, it and with it the whole of
the old Jewish religion Dan.9:24-27,
Mtt.24:15-18.

2. Jerusalem - Above

But Jerusalem which is above is free,
which is the mother of us all.

Gal.4:26

But
there is
another Jerusalem;
it is above, not below. And we are told it is the mother of us all! The
language here is remarkable and wonderfully consistent with other
references in the New Testament. Firstly to a famous passage in the
Hebrew letter.

For ye are not come unto the mount
that might be touched,
and that burned with fire, nor unto blackness, and darkness, and
tempest, And the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words;
which voice they that heard intreated that the word should not be
spoken to them any more: (For they could not endure that
which
was commanded, And if so much as a beast touch the mountain, it shall
be stoned, or thrust through with a dart: And so terrible was
the
sight, that Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake:) But
ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the
heavenly Jerusalem,
and to an innumerable company of angels, To the general
assembly
and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God
the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made
perfect, And
to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant,
and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that
of Abel. See that ye refuse not him that speaketh. For if
they
escaped not who refused him that spake on earth, much more shall not we
escape, if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven:
Whose
voice then shook the earth: but now he hath promised, saying, Yet once
more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven. And this
word,
Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken,
as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken
may remain. Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be
moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with
reverence and godly fear: For our God is a consuming fire.

Heb. 12:18-29

The Hebrew epistle was written to Jewish converts who
were
in
danger of going back to Judaism, not because of legalistic teachers
but,
because of the persecution they faced. So in some ways the exhortations
in Hebrews,
are similar to that of the Galatian letter. In this famous section the
writer
uses similar language to Paul in Galatians: as Christians we have not
come to Sinai, the law that gives rise to legalism, the system that
produces fear and darkness and all the rest that goes with it. Instead
we have come to the heavenly Jerusalem. Our spiritual home is
different! And we have not come to a Moses, who himself was
quaking in
his boots, but to JESUS
Himself! The
blessed Son of God who loved us and died for us whilst we
were
sinners. He is our mediator in this Covenant, what have we to fear?

This
city is the city of God note, not earthly Jerusalem!
It was this
heavenly city and heavenly country that men and
women of
faith sought in their earthly pilgrimage Heb.11:10;
14-15
This heavenly country they chose to seek, and forsook the earthly, or
to put it in terms of the Galatian letter, they went after the Spirit
and rejected the flesh. They couldn't have had both, they
chose
well, now what about us? What are we going to choose: the Jerusalem
above or the city that genders bondage? The Spirit or the flesh? It is
one or the other we can't
have both.

But there is a second aspect to 'Jerusalem above', consider the words
of Jesus to Nicodemus, and a certain Psalm.

Jesus answered and said unto
him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born [
=from above] again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

Jn.3:3

His foundation is in the holy
mountains. The LORD loveth the gates of Zion more than all
the dwellings of Jacob. Glorious
things are spoken of thee, O city of God. Selah.
I will make mention of Rahab and Babylon to them that know me: behold
Philistia, and Tyre, with Ethiopia; this
man was born there. And of Zion it shall be
said, This and that man
was born in her: and the highest himself shall establish
her. The LORD shall count, when he writeth up the people, that this man was born there.
Selah. As well the singers as the players on instruments
shall be there: all my
springs are in thee.

Ps. 87

The language of Jesus leaves us in no doubt
as to
the
link between these passages: in order to even see the Kingdom of God
you must be
born from ABOVE, and the Jerusalem which we have come is ABOVE and is
the mother of us all; and is free. Sinai gives birth to bondage, for it
is a legal system; Jerusalem above gives birth to freedom, for it from
there that we are born anew, and it is life from above; in
fact
it is God's life itself that is planted in us at regeneration II
Pet.1:3-4The Psalm quoted above
is also of interest for
speaking
prophetically of Jerusalem above we have the insight that our springs
are in her. That is the roots of our life is now in New Jerusalem. The
mainspring of our life was changed at new birth. No longer
are we of the
first Adam made from the earth , but of the last
Adam from heaven.
New birth brings us into the life of God, by it we are baptised into
Christ. We are translated from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom
of His dear Son. From death into life, from bondage into freedom. The
source of our life is now, not a legalistic one, but rather God
Himself; one that is life and liberty in the Spirit. With
all these truths before us there can be no doubt that, if we are in
Christ we not under any legal bondage, then why do believers want to go
back to an inferior way of life?

3. The flesh
persecutes
the Spirit

But as then he that was
born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit,
even so it is now. Nevertheless what saith the scripture?
Cast
out the bondwoman and her son: for the son of the bondwoman shall not
be heir with the son of the freewoman. So then, brethren, we
are
not children of the bondwoman, but of the free.

Gal.4:29-31

Going back one last time to the analogy Paul highlights the time
Ishmael mocked Isaac Gen.21:9-10.
Here Paul uses the word 'persecuted'.
And concludes that the bondwoman can not be heir with the freewoman. We
have thus illustrated the principle that there is a perpetual conflict
between that which is flesh and that which is Spirit. The flesh ever
conflicts with the spirit, how else can it be? They are mutually
exclusive.

For
they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they
that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit. For
to be carnally minded is death; but to be
spiritually
minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against
God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.

Rom.
8:5-7

Those believers who go back into bondage, and a life of legalism,
always, at some stage, end up persecuting, mocking those who remain in
the liberty of Christ. Eventually, unless one party yields their
ground, there has to be separation, for they can
not dwell
together. And indeed those free in Christ will at some have to cast out
the
legalists, if they will not move, lest they mar their own
inheritance in
Christ.

There can be no peaceful existence between the two camps. On example
that we have been coming back to time and again in these
studies,
has been the situation where where a group has insisted that every body
should rid their homes of certain items because they ( note that: they!)
deem them unspiritual. If this is persisted in those who are on the
receiving end of this pursuit ( same word as
persecute in
Galatians) will either give in and thus come under bondage themselves,
or have such conflict with those legalists that sooner or later
separation becomes inevitable. What is happening is a conflict of
spirit: one being of the law and the other of life from above. One
party is law controlled the other Spirit led.

The conflict between Spirit and flesh is ever present, but by walking
in the Spirit we will not fulfil the desires of the flesh. Having been
born from above, and receiving His life from above let us forever be
found walking in the Spirit, rejecting all
temptation,
whether from without or within, to go back to the ways of the flesh; we
have a better life why go back to that which is less, and that God has
done away with?